things you should know about Canada

I finished Allegiant last night. It's now up to 489 reviews and STILL rocking about a 2.5 star average. I haven't officially 'voted' yet, but I would probably give it maybe a 4. I did not really like the ending. BUT- I really enjoyed the first probably 85% of the book. So I hate to give it a totally bad rating when I did get many hours of enjoyment out of it. The ending did not do justice to the trilogy as a whole. I'm a sucker for happy endings. I want to get some payoff for the time and emotional energy I invested in this (imaginary, but so what?) world. I don't like to end a (combined) 1500 pages of reading by feeling depressed. But...the genre is what it is, so I can't say it was altogether shocking. In all, I would definitely still recommend the Divergent trilogy to someone who hadn't started reading it yet. And I don't want to give any spoilers away for those of you who haven't finished reading it yet, so I'll stop now. (Oh, but since I had to remove "Allegiant release date" from my countdown app, don't worry-- I replaced it with a new countdown to the Divergent movie release! See, my priorities are still intact!)

I've learned a lot of things in the 6-ish years I've been blogging here. (RABBIT TRAIL: when we were talking about the internet of the 90s the other day, some people mentioned having used Xanga to blog back in the day. I definitely had a Xanga for several years. I went to see if it was still there and discovered that Xanga has like...done some kind of crazy thing, I don't really understand, BUT I was able to download a zipped file of my blog's archives. I can upload it to another platform and it should be intact. I am considering doing this and then starting all of you off on a scavenger hunt to find it. The prize would be laughing your face off when you see how lame and emo I was in college. HA.) One of my unexpected 'learnings' has been how awesome Canada is. It's pretty embarrassing how little I (and I would assume many of my fellow Americans) know about our upstairs neighbors. Prior to my Blog Awakening, I would have probably guessed that there were about 11 people total in the entire country and that they all lived in igloos and drove sled dogs to get to work (which would be playing hockey). Clearly I didn't have a stereotyped view at ALL. *ahem* Anyways. I am very glad to have learned differently and now count several Canadians amongst my favorite people.

But did you know that Canadians are like really REALLY excited about their country's junk food offerings? Like...REALLY excited. I would have assumed that America, home of the fat and the lazy, pretty much cornered the market on Junk Food Excitement. But it looks like Canada is trying to give us some competition. To me this has been most evident in the attempts of my Canadian friends to 'evangelize' me with Canadian junk food. Seriously! Please take a look at two of the packages I've received in the past month (and I've had a few others in previous months):

The package on the left is from Natasha. I neglected to take a picture of what was inside because I was so amazed by the forty billion stamps on the outside of the box. Natasha takes her Canadian junk food (and general gift-giving) very seriously-- I believe this is actually the THIRD time she's sent me fun packages! She introduced me to the wonder that is Coffee Crisp candy bars and for that I am forever grateful. Trust me. They are amazing.

Yesterday Janet made my day with her awesome package. Janet did her part to make sure I will not be wasting away of malnourishment any time soon. ;) Both Janet and Natasha feel that Ketchup Chips are an integral part of the Canadian dining experience, and I can't say I blame them. They've sent me two different brands and both of them are amazing. I am already looking forward to the bag I'll enjoy with lunch today. She also sent some Tim Horton's coffee and Smarties. I haven't tried either of those yet, but since coffee and chocolate are two of my favorite food groups, I highly doubt I'll be disappointed. 

So anyway. Don't let anyone try to convince you that Canada has nothing to offer but snow and hockey. There are also some legitimately amazing people AND some super delicious snacks up there, which makes it a great place in my book. 

With that, I'm off to finish researching (Googling) "what should I ask a pediatrician at a prenatal visit?". So far I'm pretty sure I'll sound like an idiot, so it should be pretty exciting. Have a happy day!